Tough Mudder participants are shown during the "Kiss of Mud" challenge during a 2010 event. The obstacle features barbed wire placed as low as eight inches of the ground, forcing racers to crawl through mud to avoid being cut. The city of Foley is one of three Gulf Coast cities in the running to host the popular event in 2015. The 10- to 12-mile military obstacle course features other challenges like "Arctic Enema," "Electroshock Therapy," "Boa Constrictor" and "Ladder to Hell." (Courtesy Tough Mudder LLC)

FOLEY, Alabama -- Looking to tap into the potential of the 484-acre Graham Creek Nature Preserve, the city is trying to set itself up to be a premier extreme sports and adventure tourism venue.

The city is poised to host Powerman USA Duathlon in November, joining only six other cities in the U.S. that serve as official qualifiers for the Powerman World Championship each year in Switzerland. Foley is also one of three cities on the Gulf Coast in the running for the Tough Mudder, a 10-12 mile extreme obstacle course designed, as its website states, "to test all-around strength, stamina, teamwork, and mental grit."

In addition, the city is working toward a plan to contract with Archery Shooters Association to host its annual pro/am tournament championship by August 2015.

Since arriving in March, Staley said he soon discovered the preserve and its potential for the city and teamed up with Leslie Gahagan, the city's environmental manager who oversees the park.

Powerman USA

"One of the things about this event and others going forward is that we want to expose the national scene to Foley," Staley said. "We feel like this here is a great example of the Gulf Coast. We have the opportunity to land something before somebody else does and they're looking at two other cities and they made a commitment to us.

"West Palm Beach is where their championships are and the closest one would be in Austin to our west. So it definitely would put us on the map."

During Monday's meeting, the council gave Staley the approval to ink a contract with Powerman for a $5,000 bid fee. If everything moves forward, the event -- consisting of two 6.2-mile (10-kilometer) runs sandwiching a 37.2-mile (60K) bike ride -- would be held Nov. 30 at Graham Creek, which is on Wolf Bay Drive, south of Baldwin County 12. There is an option to use an alternative site, if needed, and a bike road course would need to be mapped out.

Estimates from other Powerman events shows that the Foley site would attract 400 to 950 athletes and 1,000-2,000 out-of-town spectators with an economic impact of about $500,000.

"We feel like on the Powerman, we need to bring that in here to get us on the map to get started with these folks and we feel like the economic impact from it will be substantial moving forward," Staley said. "And the other thing is it's a five-year deal even if we get started slowly with the first one."

It's a good first step into adventure sports tourism, Staley said, for the preserve that has gotten its feet wet with a handful of events in recent years such as the city's 5K Creek Crawl and the Foley's YMCA's Y Get Dirty race.

"It is a beginning process if you will even before we open the Blue Collar project," he said. "So we're going to get out there and utilize the assets that we already have here in Foley and I feel like between city services that exist -- we'll get with the (fire and police) chiefs -- and those other organizations that we need, we'll have a successful running of the event."

Tough Mudder

Athletes who sign up for Tough Mudder's 10- to 12-mile military obstacle course with challenges like "Arctic Enema," "Electroshock Therapy," "Boa Constrictor" and "Ladder to Hell," are not in it to win it but just to finish it in one piece, Gahagan said.

"When you're looking at these races, the thing is you're not running to get an award, you're running to survive and say that you're a 'Tough Mudder'," she said.

The popularity of the two-day event is clear as it attracts an average of 8,000-25,000 participants in a single weekend at venues in the U.S. and Europe. This year's events closest to Alabama, include Nashville, Houston and Central Florida, which the new Gulf Coast event would replace in 2015.

"We started out here in Foley with Creek Crawl and within six months we had the YMCA show up and want to do a Y Get Dirty. Both of these kind of skimmed (the surface) from what we've seen from this," Gahagan said. "This is the elite, the Tough Mudder is the toughest. It is nationally known."

One of the event's sponsors is the U.S. Army and a percentage of the proceeds benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, a veterans service organization.

"To date, they've given $6 million, so it's averaging about $1 million to $1.5 million a year back to the Wounded Warriors," Gahagan said.

While there is a large outlay of money to bring the group in, the amount can be offset a little by city services such as police and fire personnel.

"They come in a month ahead of time and build everything you see in open fields," Gahagan said. "It's a huge base that comes and runs these races. We're talking the smallest race we've seen to date is 5,000. Most of their races average 8,000 to 25,000 participants in a single weekend. That doesn't count the spectators. The spectators range 10,000 to 30,000 that will drive and stay just to watch this."

Once the event is finished, the organizers remove all the obstacles and return areas the way it were when the arrived.

"They would look at modifying Graham Creek's fields to put in the obstacles but the trails would stay as is," Gahagan said. "We wouldn't touch any of the plants or anything like that. Just those big open fields in the back especially."

With such a large crowd and the location of the park, Gahagan said off-site parking and shuttles would be used, likely on property along the Beach Express.

"This race would fill every hotel in Foley and spill over and probably fill quite a few in the beach areas," she said. "We're thinking on a very conservative, minimum side the smallest economic impact for this race to be seen yet has been $2 million for an area. And if we're successful in that first year they'll sign a three- to a five-year contract."

While working as the executive director of Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports Commission, Staley said he chased the Tough Mudder organizers for years without any luck."

"I'm pretty excited simply because I've chased them at every convention I've been to for seven years and they really didn't give us much of a look and now all of a sudden they are because of our location," Staley said.

He said it's going to take a "real true team effort" from the community to make it work. "But we've got a shot at this," Staley said.

The city is negotiating on being one of the Tough Mudder's first events of 2015 on the weekend of Feb. 21-22.

ASA Archery

Staley said another group that he pursued in Tuscaloosa and was successful in attracting was the Georgia-based Archery Shooters Association that holds professional and amateur archery competitions across the Southeast.

And now the association is keen on holding its year-end McKenzie ASA Pro/Am Tour championship in Foley. It's 3-D archery courses feature competitive rounds of three-dimensional animal targets made of foam.

A collection of ASA Archery tournament photos are shown in a slide taken from a city of Foley PowerPoint presentation. (City of Foley)

According to Staley, Tuscaloosa hosted its first archery tournament earlier in the year and attracted 1,562 participants.

A study conducted by Texas A&M showed that ASA events have an estimated $1.2 million impact for host cities.

The only catch for Foley is that an indoor facility would need to be constructed at Graham Creek in order to secure the three-day competition.

Gahagan presented preliminary plans to the council for a 11,845-square-foot facility -- half of which would be indoors and other other half a covered porch -- at the park's northwest corner off of Wolf Bay Drive.

"We looked a building a multi-use facility where we could generate year-round revenue with rentals for wedding receptions, educational venues and small community events and to also host all of these large events that we're talking about for sports tourism," Gahagan said.

The building would have restrooms, office space, a kitchen, classrooms with removable walls for large events where vendors could set up, and an interpretive center for the reserve.

The cost of constructing the facility, with a mostly gravel parking lot, was estimated at just over a $1 million, Gahagan said.

The proposed multi-use facility at the Graham Creek Nature Preserve is shown in a site rendering produced by Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood. (City of Foley)

While it would be utilized for sporting events it could be rented out year-round for a variety of activities, which are of high demand at existing facilities around the county. Gahagan said in doing the numbers, the facility could pay for itself through rentals in about seven years.

City Administrator Mike Thompson said a new building at the preserve would give the city an edge in attracting even more events.

"Frankly, with the Foley sports center that we're working on and Graham Creek, really the sky's the limit," Thompson said to the council during Monday's work session. "And that's a good thing for us but there's facilities, restrooms, that would be required in order for us to take advantage of the size of event that potentially Graham Creek can host down there."

Staley said the building is key to hosting a lot of the adventure tourism events.

"In order to be in the game, that's basically what they need," he said.

While council members did not vote on anything this week aside from approving the $5,000 Powerman USA contract negotiations, they gave staff the nod of approval to pursue more information on nailing down the Tough Mudder and looking into the new facility at the preserve.